


we were angels once

by nebulousviolet



Series: aftg character studies [6]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Bisexual Kevin Day, Character Study, Multi, lowercase abuse, warning for alcohol, warning for homophobia, warning for repressed bisexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 13:06:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11806581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulousviolet/pseuds/nebulousviolet
Summary: somehow it's more than exy, but somehow it isn't at the same time.





	we were angels once

**Author's Note:**

> title from natasha pierre and the great comet of 1812 (which is closing and on another note, im fuckin salty)  
> i wanted to mention kevins love of history but i didnt know where to put it in? sorry dudes  
> btw im fully aware some of the stuff in here contradicts my jean study it's called an au (im kidding im just a lazy bitch please if youve read that just ignore the inconsistencies)  
> as usual, for hadia.

there’s something possessive in the curve of andrew’s hand on neil’s hip and kevin blinks, blinks as if it will make the image in front of him disappear. and it doesn’t, because andrew has always been unwavering, not good nor bad but always _present_. so kevin keeps his mouth shut, puts his headphones back on, immerses himself in a game that doesn’t matter in the long run but he has to watch, has to squint at because exy is exy, whether or not he’s the one on court.

except somehow it became more than exy - whether it was the _slam_ of a racquet down on his left hand, or the whispers of the name moriyama, or a boy with hair dye and contacts and a lie for a name. somehow it became more than exy, and that is why he is sat here, with a computer on his lap, in a university he did not ever dream of going to, next to people who should not be alive but are. somehow it became more than exy, more than a sport, but strip him down to the bones and he’s a racquet and a scoreboard, nothing more or less.

somehow it’s more than exy, but somehow it isn’t at the same time, and kevin day is a lesson in contradictions because that’s what happens when you’re both private and public, perfect yet ruined, marble and paper at the same time.

*

“you can be my number two, if you want,” riko says, but kevin’s a smart boy, and he knows that this isn’t a choice. this is a choice in the way that living with uncle tetsuji was a choice; it is a dangerous smile, a condescending tone, the glimpse of a gun in a holster. riko moriyama doesn’t look too dangerous, six years old and with a baby face, but kevin knows better, has the bruises to show it.  
“okay,” he agrees, and riko grins at him, toothy and childish, and he pulls out a marker to draw the number on his face in wobbly handwriting.  
“now you put a one on me,” he instructs (because kevin has always been better at numbers) and he draws it neatly and solid, just underneath his eye.

riko’s eyes are full of a dangerous light, and kevin’s stomach sinks a little. (in retrospect, riko moriyama is far, far worse than his family.)

*

picture this: kevin is seventeen and a little in love with thea muldani. she’s a classic raven, hard edges and utter devotion and a set jaw. if someone were to say the word ‘power’, his mind would flash to her, would flash to her toned arms and dark eyes and edgar allan uniform.

it starts out as hate sex, because this is the nest and that’s how things always work out; a whispered threat, a scream of your name on the court, a warning that isn’t quite clear until you’re getting your legs thrashed with the back of an exy racquet. it’s hate sex until it isn’t, hate sex until kevin looks at thea muldani one day and realises the burning feeling in his throat and chest isn’t hatred it’s something more, something dangerous, and maybe she feels it too because she flings him into a wall one day and whispers,  
“you’d better not be fucking anyone else.”  
and leaves him with the taste of her mouth on his, the stares that aren’t quite stares because ravens shouldn’t have interest in anything but exy and yet here they are looking on anyway.

rats would be a better mascot, he thinks, broken and sneaky and one-track minded. ravens are too _individual_ to represent them.

then thea leaves and although he swore to her he wouldn’t, he is caught up in the cycle of the nest once more, _and it was nice while it lasted, wasn’t it,_ but now kevin looks at jean moreau, tattooed and spitting blood, and pushes her out of his head. jean is a debt, a bloodstain, a dirty reminder that the nest will never fall out of mafia hands if tetsuji can help it, so kevin turns his face away and pretends he cannot see what is so clearly there.

(desperation is a dirty word.)

*

“this is nathaniel,” the man riko calls ‘uncle nathan’ says, with a smile like cold steel and a hardness in his eyes. nathaniel is slight, short, the spitting image of his father with a rust-coloured buzzcut and eyes the precise colour of ice on a cloudless day. “he’ll be trialling here.”  
kevin knows what happens to boys who fail these trials, has heard the rumours and the whispered stories from the older kids, but he looks at nathaniel with no pity because that’s how he was raised.

he’s fast, a slip of a thing who manages to cover more surface area than should be humanly possible, and riko begins to grin as he increases the pace. kevin inhales sharply, ready to score again, when they are called off court.

nathan wesninski is cruel and slow and rips this man apart limb by limb, for this is his job, and the three of them watch with an abstract sense of horror, two dark haired boys and a shock of red. kevin feels physically sick, but nathaniel looks almost unperturbed, and riko attempts to copy that blasé expression, until kevin is left looking like a fool.

but nathaniel runs. maybe not so brave after all, kevin thinks, but that’s cruel, because he knows what happens to boys who fail. had he failed, it would’ve been his own father holding the cleaver.

for the first time, kevin is almost grateful that he is an orphan.

*

he doesn’t quite understand the complexity of neil-and-andrew-and-aaron-and-kevin-and-nicky but he pretends to because he’s a part of it. sometimes it’s easier than other times to scratch below the surface - baltimore, neil’s face in andrew’s hands, neil’s attempt at forcing the twins together, aaron holding a bloodied racquet over drake’s head, nicky cradling a phone in his hand and murmuring in german as if that will heal his hurting heart. kevin’s part of them, but not part of them. he’s not related to them. he is a minyard but not in name.

*

reconciliation; six syllables, fourteen letters, an infinitely strange concept. but that’s what he’s attempting to orchestrate in these weekly calls to jean moreau, someone not used to being a _someone_ , a boy who inhales glass and exhales blood. renee seems to think it’s a good idea, anyway, because she smiles at him whenever she find out about another call, and that’s good enough. isn’t it funny, how he’s known jean all these years, and yet it seems to be renee who now knows him better?

“jeremy kissed me,” jean says one day, his voice halting and slow, a blind man fumbling for a light switch in a dark room. kevin breathes out shakily. “and i’m not sure how i feel.”  
“did you not want it?” kevin asks immediately, because he’s been through this with andrew and he’s familiar enough with the concept of that now to almost know what to do.  
“no, no, i-” jean pauses, struggling for the words. he’s speaking in english, which is completely unnecessary, but kevin knows that it’s part of his recovery, part of learning to trust. “i did, but i wish i didn’t. because we both know what happens to gay sports players.”

this is a different matter. kevin knows this; kevin has tried to warn neil and andrew and nicky but he has gone unheeded. but jean, jean understands. he realises that he’s putting up an unnecessary, career-ending obstacle for himself.

and yet. kevin feels almost sick at the idea of it all. why should it matter? exy is more than a sport to him, but to others it is not. jean is broken and battered and bruised enough, and kevin has enough of a guilt complex about that to last him a lifetime. he sets his jaw and decides, just this once, to be a little ignorant.

“do you like him?” he interrogates, and jean sighs.  
“yes,” he mumbles. “yes. very, very much.”  
“then do it,” kevin says. “you’re intelligent. keep it under wraps. be happy for once in your life. _he_ can’t touch it.”

jean hangs up on him, and kevin fears he has fucked up until renee practically beams at him the next morning at practice.  
“kevin,” she greets. “i don’t know what you told jean but- well, he decided to try things with jeremy. thank you for helping him where i couldn’t.”

neil glances at him, and kevin just shakes his head. jean is a special case, because jean is jean. he deserves an act of mercy.

*

kevin downs the bottle of vodka neatly. _all eyes on me_. it’s not enough to kill the demons chasing him.

*

the truth is, sometimes kevin wakes up with paralysing fear that threatens to crush him entirely. those nights, kevin leaves thea asleep and creeps into the kitchen so not to awake his daughter and downs three shots of the good whiskey hidden under the cabinet that thea thinks he doesn’t know about. those nights, he’ll text either neil or jean - sometimes they text him first, so he supposes it works out well enough - and breathe slowly through his nose and out through his mouth until the world is right again.

tonight, he is not the only one awake.

“daddy?” amalia asks. she’s six and a half, too big to be waking up for no reason and too small to not need comfort. kevin quickly shoves the bottle back in the cupboard and scoops her up. her curls are a mess, her eyes red from crying, and kevin pushes her hair back from her face to soothe her.  
“you okay, princess?” he asks, setting her on the couch and checking his watch. it is three o’clock in the morning. “bad dream?”  
she nods tearfully, her eyes wide and chocolate brown, and he kisses her forehead.  
“i get nightmares too,” he whispers conspiratorially, and she looks at him, all childish innocence.  
“i know,” she says. “mommy doesn’t know, but i hear you sometimes.”

he stills, takes a deep breath and just squeezes her hand gently, all too aware of how impressionable she is.  
“well then,” he says. “it just goes to show. even grown ups have bad dreams.”  
she beams at him, and he hugs her, waits for her to yawn before letting her go. his daughter doesn’t really remind him of him, but she doesn't remind him of thea, either. she’s not broken or traumatised like they are. and that's a good thing.

he sends her back to bed, tucks her in tight, and returns to thea, who has starfished while he was gone.  
“move,” he grunts, and she does, blinking out of sleep lazily like a cat.  
“why were you up?” she asks, and he shrugs.  
“amalia.” he answers, and she lets her head flop back onto the pillows  
“you’ll ruin her sleep cycle,” she warns, sounding exhausted. “and yours.”

somehow, he can’t find it in him to care.

*

when kevin goes pro, he is on a different team to thea at first, and the night before his transfer to finally play with her instead of against her is announced, something else is.

he almost chokes when he sees the picture; jean moreau and jeremy knox kissing each other on the front page of almost every major newspaper. jeremy is smiling, almost, and jean - well jean looks like jean, unbreakable in his fragility. kevin doesn’t realise he’s calling jean until jean picks up, his voice a lazy drawl.  
“hello?” he says, and kevin clenches his fist and unclenches.  
“are you stupid?” he asks. “jean, this could affect everything.”  
“or it couldn’t,” he replies calmly ( _when did he get so fucking serene?_ ). “calm down, kevin. we were on the verge of being outed, anyway. it was only a matter of time.”

kevin remembers the first time he saw a boy who was more than just agile or strong or balanced, he was _pretty_. he remembers the way his breath caught in his throat and how hard it was to swallow and the burn of riko’s nails digging into his skin after. kevin put his bisexuality into a tiny, tiny box, placed that box into a drawer and locked it up tight. and now he can feel the locks clicking open and the box opening and it’s all too much, all of it, and he feels like he’s going to be sick.

“kevin?” jean says suddenly, his voice full of alarm. “are you okay?”  
“i’m fine,” he replies, taking a leaf out of neil’s book with that line. “i-i’m sorry. best of luck to you both.”

he hangs up, rushes to the bathroom, and vomits up his lunch. this is for every lecture he ever gave neil about andrew, this is for every drop of self-hatred he felt when he noticed an attractive person of the same gender, this is for riko and jean and everything in inbetween.

but jean’s a smart man. news of kevin’s transfer breaks the next day, and almost everyone forgets about the picture of two boys kissing.

*

“you should go to bed,” neil advises. he’s perfectly sober - more than kevin can say for nicky or himself - and there’s several noticeable hickeys peeking above his collar that are definitely product of andrew. kevin is very tired. “in fact, as your team captain, i’m ordering you to go to bed.”

andrew, who has been glancing appreciatively at neil’s ass, raises an eyebrow in good humour.

“oh, whatever,” kevin slurs, throwing his head back dramatically. “maybe i’ll die here.”  
“please do,” andrew says, bored. even in his drunken state kevin knows that he’s itching for an empty room. “i know where i can hide the body.”  
“you’re just dragging this out for yourself,” neil laughs, his face almost soft, and kevin grumbles pitifully as he drags his ass upstairs.

and for the first time in a while, he grapples with the idea that he might just be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> please give comments!!  
> comments>kudos>nothing!!  
> follow my gay ass on tumblr: vvorkangelica


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